


His Only Desire

by CheshireMoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Prays, Confessions, Ficlet, Gen, Love Confessions, Prayer, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 06:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7791148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireMoon/pseuds/CheshireMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Don’t care if he’s guilty, don’t care if he’s not<br/>He’s good and he’s bad and he’s all that I’ve got<br/>Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I’m begging you please<br/>Don’t take that sinner from me<br/>Oh don’t take that sinner from me</p>
  <p>The Civil Wars - "Devil's Backbone"</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	His Only Desire

Castiel stared down at his clasped hands. For once in his very long existence, he felt perfectly still. The storms inside him had calmed their thrashing, the fire in his heart had dulled to a vague glow. The rapid currents that always flowed under his skin stopped and came to a mirror-smooth halt. He just sat, unmoving, unwavering, undone.

Then, finally, movement. Cas' throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, eyes suddenly casting up towards the ceiling, half accusation, half pleading.

"Oh, Lord..." he began before stuttering to a halt. Never had speaking to Him come with such difficulty. The words used to drift like dandelion seeds off his lips, light and free and easy. Now...

"Father," he rumbled, the word sitting low in his chest. "Father, what have I done?" He closed his eyes and shook his head minutely. "No, I know what I've done. I have spent enough time amongst humans to know exactly what I've done." Castiel glanced around the motel room that he'd checked into. The Winchesters were on their way to work a case. The room would soon be filled with them. The scent of gun cleaner and gunpowder. The taste of cheap beer on the air. The rumble of oh so familiar voices. And Dean...

"What do I do? I seem to have... Fallen. Again. Differently this time." Castiel almost smiled at the joke, but he couldn't make his lips curve upwards. "An angel of the lord, heaven's soldier, righteous and unending, just and good... And I've fallen for someone who is nothing like you." Again he swallowed hard, this time past a lump in his throat. He had never said it out loud before.

"He does what he has to do. His life is perpetually held aloft by a hangman's noose." A shudder ran down Castiel's spine, and he found the words suddenly spilling from his mouth. His Grace trembled under the weight of ten thousand unsaid things. Thoughts that he had squirreled away to the back of his mind, never to see the light again. 

"Dean is sustained by beer, burgers, sin, and family. He was raised on the edge of the devil's backbone, destined to fight for You, and now he's stuck in between. I have seen Dean Winchester enraptured by joy, taken by rage, shattered by sorrow, and gutted and left empty. I raised him up from Hell, I have watched him die, I have killed him a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand times. We have walked and fought side-by-side. He tore through Purgatory to find me, and embraced me when I was little more than a toxin."

Castiel fell silent again, still staring up at the ceiling. Dust motes swirled in a blade of light peaking through the curtains. He watched them drift with the expression of a confused child, vulnerable and unsure. He didn't say that his Grace hummed the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard when Dean Winchester was near. Nor did Castiel count the number of times that he had gone stargazing, staring at the constellations of freckles on Dean's face. There was no way to voice the hidden imaginings of an angel who was more human than holy. Secret thoughts that lived in his heart of hearts. Whispers in his ear that he could never, would never repeat.

Slowly, slowly, Castiel lowered his gaze down to his clasped hands again. His knuckles were white and strained.

"There have been a thousand times that I have wished..." he murmured towards the floor, "That I could take Dean Winchester home. I wish I could send him back, to his unbroken family, to his untainted home. There have been a thousand more times that I have wished I could bring Dean Winchester home with me. To hide away in the most beautiful corner of Heaven we could find, where nothing can touch him." His voice broke on the last few words, cracking and crumbling slightly. "Where nothing can touch us. Where... Where there is an us."

Outside the motel room, Cas heard Baby roar into the parking lot. He closed his eyes and imagined Dean directing the Impala into a parking spot. The engine cut off. He would only have a few minutes before they found the room he had rented for them.

"I have one last request for you. Just one. Not from an angel to his Lord, not a man to his God, but from a son to his father. If I have ever asked for or wanted anything else, I was wrong."

There was silence in the room again, as Castiel directed every thought, every emotion, every ounce of his ephemeral, ancient being into one idea. His one request, his only desire. 

"Please. Don't take this sinner from me."


End file.
